Summary of Work: Highlights of our research involve relation of personality dimensions to personality disorders as well as other problems in living and mood and behavior problems. The personality disorders (PDs) described in DSM-IV are a set of discreet psychiatric categories, but similarities between features characterizing PDs and normal personality trait dimensions have repeatedly been pointed out. Both personality disorders and traits are construed as enduring dispositions that affect behavior and experience in a wide variety of contexts; both are likely to have a substantial genetic basis. Widiger and colleagues made detailed predictions linking PDs to the 30 specific traits (or facets) measured by the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R). We extended previous work on the hypothesis that borderline personality disorder (BPD) can be understood as a maladaptive variant of personality traits included within the 5-factor model (FFM) of personality. In each of 3 samples, an empirically derived prototypic FFM borderline profile was correlated with individuals' FFM profiles to yield a similarity score, an FFM borderline index. Results across all samples indicated that the FFM borderline index correlated as highly with existing borderline measures as they correlated with one another, and the FFM borderline index correlated as highly with measures of dysfunction, history of childhood abuse, and parental psychopathology as did traditional measures of BPD. Findings support the hypothesis that BPD is a maladaptive variant of FFM personality traits. Three studies were conducted to assess mean level changes in personality traits during adolescence. Versions of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory were used to assess the 5 major personality factors. A 4-year longitudinal study of intellectually gifted students (N =. 230) was supplemented by cross-sectional studies of nonselected American (N = 1,959) and Flemish (N = 789) adolescents. Personality factors were reasonably invariant across ages, although rank-order stability of individual differences was low. Neuroticism appeared to increase in girls, and Openness to Experience increased in both boys and girls; mean levels of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness were stable. Results extend knowledge of the developmental curve of personality traits backward from adulthood and help bridge the gap with child temperament studies. Psychosomatic medicine is concerned with identifying factors that predispose people to disease. Personality factors are prime variables of interest in this regard. Basic research on personality dimensions conducted in LPC has identified Hostility, a facet within the broader domain of Agreeableness-Antagonism as a major construct necessary to understand the role of personality in disease processes and health outcomes, especially coronary heart disease. Understanding the developmental course of hostility during the decades of the twenties through the forties and mid-life period is of increased importance. Maturational changes in hostility may have differential efects on important health outcomes. Hostility levels assessed in 1964 and 1965 and patterns of change in hostility from college (1960's) to midlife (1988) were examined as predictors of high health-related risk in over 2,000 respondents in the UNC ALumni Heart Study. Health risk behaviors in a number of areas (exercise, smoking, drinking, diet and depression, social and economic factors, and negative appraisals of change in life situation) were predicted in a series of logistic regressionmodels. Association of college hostility and midlife hostility measured 23 years later was 0.39 and college hostility and change in hostility was inversely related (-.66) with an average decline of 4.61 oints (sd = 7.89). Individuals who failed to show the normative decline in hostility were of two types, those who maintained stable levels of hostility and those who showed gains in hostility. Those who showed gains in hostility had double the risk for obesity, inadequate social support and risk of depression. Individuals who show non-normative personality changes--decreases in Agreeableness versus the expected increases may be at significant risk for more general health consequences including premature mortality. There is a considerable literature linking aspects of experienced parenting to later personality disorders. Because dimensionally measured personality disorders are associated with variations in normal personality traits, it is important to understand the contribution of parenting experienced in childhood to later normal personality traits. In this report, 742 community-based individuals, subjects from the Hopkins Epidemiology of Personality Disorders Study, were assessed for normal personality traits, as measured by the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), and for parental behavior experienced as children, as measured by the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI). The PBI dimensions were significantly, but moderately, correlate with measures of normal personality, the strongest associations being with the NEO-PI-R factors, neuroticism and conscientiousness, and with the TO factors, self-directedness and harm avoidance. Subjects who reported lower parental care and higher parental intrusiveness were more likely to be higher in neuroticism, lower in conscientiousness, lower in self-directedness, and higher in harm avoidance. Also, trends emerged suggesting both parent-specific and gender-specific differences in the relationship between the PBI dimensions and normal adult personality traits. As variations in normal personality traits are associated with dimensionally measured personality disorders, it is conceivable that the role of parenting in later personality disorder may be mediated by associations between parenting and normal personality traits. To investigate the role of parenting in the development of adult antisocial personality traits three fundamental dimensions of parental behavior - care, behavioral restrictiveness and denial of psychological autonomy - were derived by factor analysis from the PBI. These dimensions significantly correlated with measures of parental behavior considered influential in later antisocial behavior. Adult antisocial traits in males were associated with low maternal care and high maternal behavioral restrictiveness, and in females, antisocial traits were associated with low paternal care and high maternal denial of psychological autonomy. These dimensions did not, however, explain all variance parental behavior has on adult antisocial personality traits.Conclusion: Adult antisocial personality traits are associated with experiences of low parental care and maternal overprotection. To investigate the role of parenting in the development of adult antisocial personality traits three fundamental dimensions of parental behavior - care, behavioral restrictiveness and denial of psychological autonomy - were derived by factor analysis from the PBI. These dimensions significantly correlated with measures of parental behavior considered influential in later antisocial behavior. Adult antisocial traits in males were associated with low maternal care and high maternal behavioral restrictiveness, and in females, antisocial traits were associated with low paternal care and high maternal denial of psychological autonomy. These dimensions did not, however, explain all variance parental behavior has on adult antisocial personality traits. Adult antisocial personality traits are associated with experiences of low parental care and maternal overprotection.